Will the Flynn effect make religion go way of the Dodo?

[CroFlames]

Define "society".

Sure, in some enclaves or small groups it might become extinct, like in small highly affluent countries like Iceland or Norway.

But greater society? Not a chance. I know a brilliant engineer who fasts to the minute, does the whole 5 times a day prayer etc and the whole kit and kaboodle.

Plus, someone else mentioned, it'll get replaced by a different kind of tribalism (are you familiar with MAGA?)

[DoubleF]

Religion is the opiate of the masses. The masses will always seek out an opiate, but the opiate of choice may evolve. I don't think this should be controversial. Both sides of the argument should be able to agree that how people celebrate religion or argue against religion has been constantly evolving.

As mentioned, tribalism may replace religion. That's sports teams vs sports teams, video game vs video game, brand vs brand, country vs country etc. I don't know if that's an argument that religion is truly being replaced and disappearing, or if our definition of religion is so specific and narrow that we are arguing that the dominant ones are in a state of decline to be replaced with other beliefs experiencing rapid growth.

[Fuzz]

I find it baffling that people think something must replace a religion. Myself, many of my family, most of my friends...no religion, and no weird cult like thinking has emerged...well, except my brother who is a card carrying Muskestanian. But really, why must something take it's place? It feels like a justification people need as to why people believe in gods at all. Nothing is also a perfectly functional option.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I find it baffling that people think something must replace a religion. Myself, many of my family, most of my friends...no religion, and no weird cult like thinking has emerged...well, except my brother who is a card carrying Muskestanian. But really, why must something take it's place? It feels like a justification people need as to why people believe in gods at all. Nothing is also a perfectly functional option.

It's human nature to feel the need to be part of a group. Sounds like you have a robust friends and family group. You belong to the CP group. You probably have other fulfilling hobbies and interests.

This might sound shocking, but no two people are the same. Some people require a 'group' more than others.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

It's human nature to feel the need to be part of a group. Sounds like you have a robust friends and family group. You belong to the CP group. You probably have other fulfilling hobbies and interests.

This might sound shocking, but no two people are the same. Some people require a 'group' more than others.

Religion purely as a social good appears to be pretty irreplaceable.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by peter12

religion purely as a social good appears to be pretty irreplaceable.

LOL. This is exactly what I mean.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

LOL. This is exactly what I mean.

Generally speaking, church-goers (even casual ones) tend to take a better stake in their community than non church-goers. They also have far better mental health than non church-goers.

That said, this effect seems to stick around for any of kind of social club with a common purpose.

The problem is, that this is declining as a whole across all of society as we regress into small little lonely individual bubbles.

[FlamesAddiction]

Not to dwell on the IQ thing, but it is true that IQ measures an aspect of intelligence that would mostly has nothing to do with religious philosophy. I know what the OP was getting at though. As human's get a better grasp of the natural world, there are aspects of religion that get more difficult to reconcile, at least for fundamentalists. Many, if not most people who follow a religion, are not fundamentalists though and have degrees of agnosticism in their personal beliefs that allow for change.

I find these kinds of debates difficult at times because people are often arguing about different things without realizing it. When I think of religion, I tend to define it as spiritual beliefs in general, and not just dogma based organized religion.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Not to dwell on the IQ thing, but it is true that IQ measures an aspect of intelligence that would mostly has nothing to do with religious philosophy. I know what the OP was getting at though. As human's get a better grasp of the natural world, there are aspects of religion that get more difficult to reconcile, at least for fundamentalists. Many, if not most people, are not fundamentalists though and have degrees of agnosticism in their personal beliefs that allow for change.

I find these kinds of debates difficult at times because people are often arguing about different things without realizing it. When I think of religion, I tend to define it as spiritual beliefs in general, and not just dogma based organized religion.

But that's not really the definition. Religion is a subset of spirituality, and many people have no issue with spirituality, while finding religion troublesome.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by peter12

Generally speaking, church-goers (even casual ones) tend to take a better stake in their community than non church-goers. They also have far better mental health than non church-goers.

That said, this effect seems to stick around for any of kind of social club with a common purpose.

The problem is, that this is declining as a whole across all of society as we regress into small little lonely individual bubbles.

I'm the furthest from a religion fan, but I think this seems completely reasonable.

The vast majority of religious people are casually engaged, and not raging zealots (although still definitely influenced, for better and worse, by their religions).

Religion as a club, is a good thing. It's the indoctrination that is the bad part.

Clubs and socializing help breed empathy, maintain mental and physical health, and instil a sense of community.

All the stats say this is falling apart. Kids don't hang out in person anymore, they all just socialize over their phones. Lots of people don't work in person anymore, and stay holed up at home.

There's a gap that needs to be filled as religion declines and technology lets us be socially lazy.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

This post is 99% drivel, but I want to just comment that even your basic assumption at the beginning is extremely debateable. There are plenty of miraculous events in the universe. I am not even sure that life's emergence is the most statistically unlikely. If you were going to attack this vector, you should stick to the notion that the physical laws and fundamental forces of the universe are finely attuned to such a degree that even minute deviations would make chemistry or even atomic nuclei impossible as we know them. Of course, this itself is defeated by the anthropic principle... We are here, so of course we are seeing conditions that would allow us to be here. Hell, even the existence of our moon is a somewhat miraculous and seemingly impossible reality.

I think your ability to judge a miracle is ####ed.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

This post is 99% drivel, but I want to just comment that even your basic assumption at the beginning is extremely debateable. There are plenty of miraculous events in the universe. I am not even sure that life's emergence is the most statistically unlikely. If you were going to attack this vector, you should stick to the notion that the physical laws and fundamental forces of the universe are finely attuned to such a degree that even minute deviations would make chemistry or even atomic nuclei impossible as we know them. Of course, this itself is defeated by the anthropic principle... We are here, so of course we are seeing conditions that would allow us to be here. Hell, even the existence of our moon is a somewhat miraculous and seemingly impossible reality.

There are over 200 moons in our own solar system so I'm not sure how ours is particular miraculous but I do agree there are probably plenty of miraculous events in the universe, we just can't see them....yet

[driveway]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

There are over 200 moons in our own solar system so I'm not sure how ours is particular miraculous but I do agree there are probably plenty of miraculous events in the universe, we just can't see them....yet

There's a bunch of stuff about Earth's moon that makes it fairly unusual in our solar system. Though, 30 years ago the solar system itself was completely unique so far as we knew, so it's likely we'll find other planets with similar satellites.



Of particular interest is the size of the moon relative to earth (about 25% of our diameter), it's density relative to earth, and the current leading theory for the formation of the moon (collision between Proto-Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet).

[afc wimbledon]

Religion, the concept of Gods, an afterlife etc developed to enable humanity to have a sense of control in a world that they had no control nor understanding over, floods and volcanos were caused by an angry god who could be placated by prayer and sacrifices, clearly if the crops failed it was the farmers fault for not praying enough, death is about the only thing left that we cannot control now and it is the only part of religion we still adhere to, no one prays to end a drought or save themselves from an earthquake any more, because of this religion has become less important even to the profoundly religious, I cannot see it surviving much more in the way of advances of medicine, we wont conquer death clearly but if/when we overcome disease, we all live to 90 or so then God becomes all but practically irrelevant

[Fuzz]

As long as people can use it to justify their own impressively ####ty actions and get away with it, it unfortunately won't be going anywhere.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by driveway

There's a bunch of stuff about Earth's moon that makes it fairly unusual in our solar system. Though, 30 years ago the solar system itself was completely unique so far as we knew, so it's likely we'll find other planets with similar satellites.



Of particular interest is the size of the moon relative to earth (about 25% of our diameter), it's density relative to earth, and the current leading theory for the formation of the moon (collision between Proto-Earth and a Mars-sized protoplanet).

Also just kinda fun and a temporary feature of the time we happen to find ourselves in, but the fact the sun and the moon occupy almost the exact same portion of our sky, allowing for the unique and special effect that our eclipses create. It's the fact that it was discovered first and is completely barren that causes us to see the moon as a moon.

But certainly had the moon been able to keep some of the heavier metals donated to the earth in their collision or something resembling an atmosphere that we would probably consider ours a binary planet, big has proven to fairly rare in our galaxy up to this point.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by #-3

Also just kinda fun and a temporary feature of the time we happen to find ourselves in, but the fact the sun and the moon occupy almost the exact same portion of our sky, allowing for the unique and special effect that our eclipses create. It's the fact that it was discovered first and is completely barren that causes us to see the moon as a moon.

But certainly had the moon been able to keep some of the heavier metals donated to the earth in their collision or something resembling an atmosphere that we would probably consider ours a binary planet, big has proven to fairly rare in our galaxy up to this point.

Our moon is only the 5th largest in the solar system, if Ganymede and Titan weren't in orbit around Jupitar and Saturn they would be planets, both are larger Mercury

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Our moon is only the 5th largest in the solar system, if Ganymede and Titan weren't in orbit around Jupitar and Saturn they would be planets, both are larger Mercury

Sorry I wrote that poorly, long winded, and a lot of assumptions

The moon is a large object that has become spherical under the force of it's own gravity.
It's orbital pathway is generally clear

The thing that prevents it from being considered a planet is that it's primary orbit is not around the sun but around another body.

The orbital center of gravity between the earth and moon is about 1/4 way to the center of earth.

The moon is roughly half the density of earth.

If the moon had similar density to earth the orbital center of the system would be outside of the earth. and rather than the earth orbiting the sun and the moon orbiting the earth, than the earth moon system would be orbiting the sun and the earth/moon would be orbiting a gravitational center.

because of all of these things the earth/moon system very closely resembles a binary planet system, and if you remove yourself from the frame of reference created by a culture originating under that big light in the night sky, and put yourself into the mindset of some with a more typical planet to moon scale, you might consider the earth/moon system a binary planet, which appears to be pretty unusual. There is definitely something unique about the size of the moon when compared to the earth, but any reasons to think that is meaningful in anyway are pure speculation at best.

Saturn and Jupitars moons orbital pathways are full of objects, and there is no question that they are not comparable objects to the gas giants they orbit.

[blankall]

People with more education have fewer children....a lot fewer, many are having zero. We may be seeing the opposite happen.